Poetry Unbound Oksana Maksymchuk — Arguments for Peace
Jan 30, 2026
A winter city grappling with the shock of invasion and the everyday desire to protect life. The poem wrestles with how language can resist and reframe war. Reflections explore bewilderment at violence amid beauty and the quiet strategies people use to survive. Readings and bilingual music highlight solidarity and the lived geography of displacement.
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Beauty Versus Imminent Threat
- Oksana Maksymchuk's poem contrasts ordinary holiday life with the looming reality of invasion to show how language strains under crisis.
- The poem reclaims warm, domestic metaphors to resist war's language and preserve humane meanings.
Denial As Protective Language
- The repeated wish 'there'll be no war' functions as both denial and an attempt to hold onto hope amid clear danger.
- Saying the denial aloud shows how people use language to brace themselves when reality is unbearable.
Language Strained By Atrocity
- The poem asks how terrible events can happen in beautiful places, exposing language's impotence to fully make sense of atrocity.
- Pádraig emphasizes that even ordinary descriptive words feel strained and insufficient in crisis.
